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Stereoscopic 3D Display Basics

By March 30, 2010March 24th, 2020Newswires

Stereoscopic 3D Display Basics

By Don Woligroski

Since 3D displays are by no means a common household item, most folks are likely to be somewhat uninformed when it comes to how a 3D display actually works. This calls for a short primer. Please keep in mind that we’ll focus on the core points for the sake of simplicity.

A human being’s ability to perceive the third dimension goes hand-in-hand with our binocular vision. Put simply, we can see in 3D because we have two eyes. Each of our eyes sees the world from a slightly different perspective and our brain combines these perspectives to give us a sense of how close or far an object is. Because there are two separate perspectives, this is commonly referred to as stereoscopic vision.

An easy way to demonstrate stereoscopic vision is with a quick exercise (best performed when you’re not looking in the direction of a PC monitor). Close your left eye and put your right hand about four inches in front of your right eye. Wiggle your hand a little. Now, open both eyes and do the same thing with one hand in front of your right eye–you will experience a big difference in your sense of depth and the position of your hand in 3D space. When both of your eyes are providing an alternate perspective, your brain is able to put together that rich sense of relative placement and provide an accurate indication of how far your hand actually is from your face. If you stop moving your hand and close each eye alternatively, you will notice that each eye provides a different view of where your hand sits in your field of vision.

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